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Quality inequality and opportunity

Marxist Analysis · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The article argues that capitalism cannot deliver genuine equality of opportunity because it structurally requires inequality of outcome to function. Michael Roberts directly refutes Ben Bernanke's claim that improved education and skills training can reconcile capitalist growth with fair opportunity. The central thesis is that inequality is not a correctable malfunction of capitalism but an essential feature: the system works best (for capital) precisely by increasing inequality. Consequently, the pursuit of "equality of opportunity" within capitalism is a ideological smokescreen that obscures the need for socialist transformation based on public ownership and planned distribution.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis draws on classical Marxist political economy, particularly Marx's critique of the distribution of wealth under capitalism and the concept of exploitation as inherent to the wage-labour/capital relation. Roberts implicitly deploys Marx's distinction between the sphere of circulation (where "equality of opportunity" appears plausible) and the sphere of production (where the real extraction of surplus value occurs). The argument sits within the Marxist tradition that treats inequality not as a distributional anomaly but as a necessary condition for capital accumulation — the reserve army of labour, downward pressure on wages, and the concentration and centralisation of capital all presuppose inequality. The article also echoes Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme, where the principle "to each according to his needs" is posed against bourgeois notions of fair exchange and equal opportunity.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article is written in August 2007, on the eve of the global financial crisis. This timing is crucial: Roberts cites Goldman Sachs bonuses and the widening income gap in the US as evidence of capitalism's "success," but the crisis that erupted months later would expose the fictitious capital and overaccumulation underlying that apparent prosperity. The article engages directly with Bernanke's February 2007 Omaha speech, using official Federal Reserve data to show that the top 1% of US households increased their income share from 8% to 14% between 1979 and 2007, while the bottom 20% saw their share fall from 7% to 5%. The UN World Institute for Development Economics Research report (2006) is cited to show global inequality: the poorest 50% of the world's population own just 1% of global wealth. The conjuncture is one of rising profits, stagnant working-class living standards, and the ideological offensive of "opportunity" as a substitute for redistribution.

Where the Argument Continues

This article is an early statement of themes Roberts develops extensively in his subsequent work on inequality, crisis theory, and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Readers should consult Roberts' later IDOM articles on the Great Recession, particularly his analyses of the 2008 crash and its aftermath, where the inequality documented here is shown to be both a cause and consequence of capitalist crisis. The argument also connects to the broader Marxist debate on the "secular stagnation" thesis and the relationship between rising inequality and falling profitability. Roberts' book The Long Depression (2016) provides the fuller theoretical framework, situating the inequality trends of the 2000s within the long-wave dynamics of capitalist accumulation. Against the Stream episodes on wealth concentration and class struggle in the US develop the political conclusions only gestured at here.

Connections

  • Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme — the theoretical foundation for the distinction between bourgeois equality and communist distribution according to need.
  • Marx, Capital Volume 1 — particularly chapters on the general law of capitalist accumulation and the reserve army of labour.
  • Roberts, The Long Depression — extends the analysis of inequality into the post-2008 period and links it to profitability trends.
  • IDOM articles on the 2008 financial crisis — show how the fictitious capital and overaccumulation underlying the "good profits" of 2007 collapsed.
  • Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century — a useful empirical companion, though Roberts would critique Piketty's reformist conclusions from a Marxist standpoint.
  • Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England — the historical precedent for documenting how capitalist "progress" produces immiseration alongside wealth.

Key Quotes

  1. "The reason that the rich are getting richer is that they are rich. The poor get poorer because they are poor. Inequality of income and wealth is endemic to the capitalist system of production and capitalism works best (at least for a while) by increasing inequality."

  2. "The measures of inequality will never decline unless capitalism is curbed. Of course, if you curb a system, it does not work well; so you have to change it."

  3. "The capitalist system cannot achieve equality of opportunity precisely because it needs inequality of wealth and income to function. Only a socialist society works to reduce inequality through public ownership of wealth and democratically planned distribution."

  4. "Ben Bernanke's speech to Omaha's rich was entitled 'The level and distribution of economic well-being'. Marx considered the same topic over 150 years ago. His main message was that a fair and cooperative society (a socialist society) would ask every citizen to contribute according to their means and receive back according to their needs."

  5. "The poorest 50% of the world's 6.6bn population own just 1% of the world's riches. So much for equality of opportunity."